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This summer of 2003,
The Andy Warhol Museum is presenting numerous special exhibitions and programs
under the banner of "Summer of Andy" -- a celebration of the fact
that August 6, 2003 would have been Andy Warhol's 75th birthday. Three exhibitions,
Where is Elvis?, Douglas Gordon: Blind Star and Too Hot to Handle:
Creating Controversy Through Political Cartoons open in June with an
opening event on Saturday, June 14. Next up are two more special exhibitions,
Keith Edmier and Farrah Fawcett and The American Supermarket.
Both exhibitions will be on view July 13 through October 5, 2003 with an
opening event on Saturday, July 12.

Keith Edmier and Farrah Fawcett

The exhibition, Keith Edmier and Farrah Fawcett,
examines the connection between artist and muse through a series of collaborative
sculptures and photographs by contemporary artist, Keith Edmier, and actress
and artist, Farrah Fawcett. Produced by Art Production Fund, the exhibition
features the results of a two-year collaboration between the artists, spurred
by Edmier's childhood admiration of Fawcett.

Collaboration

Since her 1976 debut in the television series Charlie's
Angels, actress Farrah Fawcett has played the role of the ideal woman
and muse for many men. For Edmier, Fawcett was a particularly resonant figure
of youthful admiration and inspiration because he knew she herself was an
artist. Edmier first contacted Fawcett with the hope of inviting her into
a collaborative project. With only a vague idea of how such a project would
take shape, Edmier wrote in his original proposal, "In the very broadest
terms, I would like to propose making a portrait of Ms. Fawcett with her
ideas and concerns about the piece directly influencing its final form."

In August 2000, the project began with the idea of a sculpture
of Fawcett, but encouraged by Edmier, she decided to make a portrait of
him as well. Ultimately, they produced what would be the centerpiece of
Keith Edmier and Farrah Fawcett, a reclining female in marble and
a standing male in bronze, both life-size. Fawcett's active role in the
creation of art for the project threw into question distinctions between
inspiration and collaboration, artist and muse. Rather than standing in
as Edmier's independently powerful muse who facilitated creation, Fawcett
participated in and directly influenced the process.

The Exhibition

The centerpiece of the exhibition, Keith Edmier and
Farrah Fawcett 2000, includes a pair of nude sculptures the artists
made of each other. Both life-size, a reclining Fawcett is rendered in white
marble; a standing Edmier in bronze. In the sculptures, the artists are
depicted less as themselves than as ideals. Edmier's boyish good looks are
enhanced and Fawcett has not aged since her 1976 television debut. In reinventing
the image of Fawcett that was so crucial to his youth, Edmier shifts the
narrative of his past from first to third person, unhooking it from autobiography.
But by providing a grown-up Edmier as mate to a 1970s Fawcett, the collaboration
sustains the original fantasy, suggesting that past is never wholly resolved.

In addition to the sculptures of Keith Edmier and Farrah
Fawcett 2000, the exhibition include five small sculptures, a group
of black and white photographs by the collaborators, and two color photographs:
a close-up of Fawcett's hand touching her hair, and The Space Between
You and Me, a digital photograph that shows Fawcett leaning her forehead
against Edmier's. What at first glance looks like a romantic image, on closer
inspection becomes a sort of pieta. Edmier and Fawcett clearly had this
theme in mind when they juxtaposed the photograph beside an image of Michelangelo's
Pieta Rondanini (1555-64).

The Artists

Fawcett's interest in art began early in life and continued
during the late 1960s at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was
an art major. The professor who encouraged her efforts made large-scale
religious sculptures for churches, so her training was mainly in classical
techniques. Over the years, Fawcett has continued to make sculpture, paint
and draw.

Edmier was born in Chicago in 1967, when Fawcett was at
Austin. After a brief stint at California Institute of the Arts, he left
school at age 18 to work on special effects in Hollywood. At age 24 he moved
to New York and entered the art world. Exposed to Conceptualism during his
brief tenure at CalArts, he began his career creating art with an emotional
distance. He credits artists of his own generation for reminding him that
it was permissible to make art that overtly engages sentiment. Currently,
Edmier is concerned with the impact of celebrity on the individual. He uses
himself and his subjects as evidence in this exploration, testing ideas
against experience. Working together, Edmier and Fawcett have held a magnifying
glass to the connection between fantasy and reality, celebrity and fan,
and created a new understanding of the way mass culture affects lives and
shapes memory.

Keith Edmier and Farrah Fawcett was
produced by Art Production Fund. Art Production Fund (APF), a non-profit
organization devoted to helping artists realize difficult to produce works,
has supported and organized this entire project from its inception. APF
was co-founded in January 2000 by: Yvonne Force Villareal, President/Curator;
and Doreen Remen, Director. This project would not have been possible without
the support of the following APF Sponsors: The Deerfield Foundation, Mr.
Donald Keough, Mr. Louis Marx Jr., and Mr. Laurance S. Rockefeller. Special
thanks to Friedrich Petzel Gallery for their support. The exhibition was
originally conceived by Lynn Zelevansky, Curator of Modern and Contemporary
Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The American Supermarket

The American Supermarket is a recreation the famous 1964
Pop Art installation of the same name. A collaboration between the great
names of Pop Art including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Artschwager,
Robert Watts, Tom Wesselman and others, the exhibition is an evocation of
an ordinary 1964 supermarket ­ complete with meat, cheese and fruit
counters, neon signs and jaunty background musak. In the installation's
"aisles," real foods are mixed together with iconic Pop works
such as Warhol's stacks of Campbell's Soup cans and Robert Watts' alluring
chrome fruits and multi-colored wax eggs.

The American Supermarket was
recreated by the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt for their recent exhibition,
Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture. The installation's
presentation at The Warhol is the first time it will be seen in the United
States since its sensational 1964 debut at New York City's Bianchini Gallery.

The driving force behind the 1964 display of The American
Supermarket was artist Ben Birillo, partner with Paul Bianchini in the
Bianchini Gallery, who devised the installation, approached artists and
produced many of the works on display. Starting on October 6, 1964, Birillo
staged a weeklong "Grand Opening" in the Gallery that mimicked
the attention-grabbing and point-of-sale promotional techniques of supermarket
operators. One thousand buttons with turkey, apple, or soup can motifs were
given away free, while a hot dog stand provided nourishment to the "shoppers"
and art collectors who snapped up 'Specials' such as actual Campbell's soup
cans signed by Warhol for only $18. A neon sign advertised Ballantine brand
beer and illuminated signs led customers to the Egg, Fruit and Bread aisles.
In the rear of the store, melons, apples, pears and bananas, as well as
lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini by Robert Watts were displayed
on colored paper in wooden crates. Twelve dollars bought customers a paper
bag silk-screened with a Campbell's Tomato Soup motif by Warhol or a turkey
motif by Roy Lichtenstein. Fake sirloin steaks by Mary Inman went for $27.
The exhibition attracted thousands of curious visitors and widespread press
attention including a full-color feature in Life magazine.

With its Pop Art proprietors The American Supermarket
celebrated the spectacle of consumption with a happening-like event
in which shopping was elevated to an art form and serious art collectors
were turned into ordinary supermarket customers.